Asian

A full description of the film can be found in James Quandt’s edited collection of writings on (and by) Ichikawa Kon from the Cinemateque Ontario (in Sato Tadao’s essay “Kon Ichikawa” on pages 109 – 111). A Billionaire was one of a handful of 50s comedies that Ichikawa directed that were extremely successful at the box office. These films were characterized by rapid-fire dialogue and biting social commentary (others like this include Pu-San and Mr Lucky). This is definitely a period of Ichikawa’s career that deserves more focus from the West.Read More »

Synopsis:
In the arid mountains of the remote and inaccessible Huangyangchuan, Gansu Province, a simple small countryside clinic welcomes the local sick and injured. Ma Bingcheng is a respected country doctor. Thanks to his good medical skills, day after day his waiting room is filled with patients wanting to consult him or get a prescription. His cramped country clinic is an open space where information and personal experiences intertwine, offering the audience a rare dissecting view of the lives and living conditions of the local farmers.Read More »

Photographer Satoshi has become famous while working among the rhich and famous. His photos are worh a million. But the young man dreams of taking photos of Canadian landscapes instead of working in the studio with the same people all the time. His dreams fall to pieces when he gets a job working with model Shingo. All his anger is targeted at Shingo’s girlfriend, who is staying at Satoshi for some time. Satoshi’s neighbour Nanao overhears their whole converstation. Florist Nanao has a dream herself: She wants to go to France and studies French language very hard. This is then overheard by Satoshi. Little by little the two start listening more and more to the sound of their neighbour.Read More »

Plot
Pei Gang (played by Ou Wei) was earlier sentenced by the magistrate to death for committing 3 cruel murders,even though he claimed that the killings were acts of self defense. We learnt that Pei Gang was in fact a spoiled brat and a bully. He also had a doting grandmother who promised that she’ll get him out of any trouble, including death row. Pei will not be executed until next Autumn, which gave him about one year’s time. When all efforts to get him out seem to fail, what will his next course of action be? The central theme of the story is not so much about his escape, but rather the transformation of this man from evil to good, from running away and blaming others into accepting responsibility for his actions and eventually, accepting his fate…Read More »

Synopsis:
A lurid thriller that mixes the erotic with the fantastic, NAKED POISON is the story of Ah Man, a loner who has only one human friend, his coworker Ling, and who spends most of his time with his pet lizards and snakes. When Ah Man discovers how to harness his reptiles’ power to create serums that can…
A lurid thriller that mixes the erotic with the fantastic, NAKED POISON is the story of Ah Man, a loner who has only one human friend, his coworker Ling, and who spends most of his time with his pet lizards and snakes. When Ah Man discovers how to harness his reptiles’ power to create serums that can give him strange powers, Ah Man begins to grow obsessed. When his deranged obsession alerts Ling that something is wrong, she puts herself at risk to save him.Read More »

Romances end in blood and the frail hopes of individuals are torn apart in a vile karmic continuity of colonialism…
Address Unknown (2001) is Kim Ki-Duk’s most political film so far which traces the scars left by the Korean war of the 1950s and its contemporary reverberations on a US Army base.Read More »

Synopsis:
From the award-winning Korean writer/director/editor Kim K-Duk comes this critifcally acclaimed and exquisitely beautiful story of a young Buddhist monk’s evolution from innocence to Love, Evil to Enlightenment and ultimately to Rebirth.

Prayer, meditation, and appreciation of nature are the sacraments by which two monks live a simple life in Korean director Kim Ki-Duk’s SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING. A wise old monk (Oh Young-soo) is master to a young student, and remains so throughout the changing seasons of the younger monk’s life. In springtime the young monk is a 5-year-old boy, in summer he is a teenager, in fall he is a 30-year-old man, and in winter he is in mid-life. The master and his student live in a tranquil house that floats in the middle of a pond hidden in a vast woodland. Paddling their row boat to the edge of the pond, they roam the forest collecting herbs for medicine, observing animals, and learning deep lessons about life.Read More »

Quote:
After finding her husband’s infidelity, YEON absent-mindedly heads for the prison where condemned criminal JIN is confined. Although she doesn’t know him, repeated news of his suicide attempts on TV had subconsciously grown in her mind. Their first meeting is as awkward as it can get. YEON treats JIN like an old friend whereas JIN doesn’t open up so easily. To JIN’s surprise, YEON comes back for the interview again and again, with the decorated interview room like sping, summer and fall. YEON sings him seasonal tunes in dresses of that season. JIN gradually accepts YEON’s efforts and opens up to her. One day, her husband witnesses the intimacy between YEON and JIN and tries to separate them. They can’t see each other again while the limited time for JIN is ticking away. But the two are already attached to each other more than her husband assumed — more than life and death.

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Overview:
On the surface, this may seem to be an early example of the Japanese exploitation films that would become very popular about five years later. In fact, this film occasionally feels like Seijun Suzuki’s own interpretation, if only for the technicolor cinematography and the presence of some sleazy elements. However, past the surface, this is still very much a Tomu Uchida film. His compassion towards his character and the issues they face, is handled delicately and his semi-cynical humor is as apparent as ever. Still, I’d be lying if I said this was on the same level as Uchida’s own Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji.Read More »